I Cannot Go On
by 4EverStrong
Summary: A new disease was unleashed upon the American soldiers of the new war. With all the death surrounding her, Quinn can't go on. One-shot.


I don't understand anything he says anymore. It's probably because he doesn't really talk. He just sits with that vacant, hollow look in his eyes. When he needs some thing, such as a glass of water, he just mumbles and motions to things with his hands. It's hard for him to move around by himself these days. When he does have enough strength to walk, it's stiff. With skin as dry as the Sahara, he crumbles underneath the weight of himself.

I don't know how much longer I can take it. I feel selfish for wishing him to die, but I know that he wants it too. It hurts to watch him struggle to live, no not live, survive. This wasn't living. This was dying, decomposing, but never living. I told him once before, while we were at the hospital, he should just give up and let the darkness of this dying world over take him. He told me he couldn't put me through it.

Now I watch him silently. His body, mind, and soul are crying out for the pain to leave. I cry for it to leave to, but it never does.

The doctors have yet to find a cure. If the major facilities in the east hadn't been destroyed in the war, a cure would have been found by now. Or so they say. They told me that most of their technology is just a bunch of scrap metal now. It could take years more to rebuild it all. Then another couple of years to train people to use it. Another year or two to create the cure and at least six months to start distribution.

So I have been sitting here for a good five years watching the man I love in agony because of greed. That's what caused the war. The american government came up with a new technology that could think just like the human mind and was three times as fast as anything else mechanical. Japan and Russia desperately wanted what we created, but given their history we denied them access. They quickly created an alliance and bombed our entire east coast.

Rachel and Finn were living out there when it happened. Thankfully Finn was still out west training to join the military, but Rachel was still there. No one heard from her after the bombing. We assumed she was dead. The whole Glee Club got together and we held a service for ourselves.

Finn left right away to get his trianing done. He wanted to avenge the death of his one true love. Puck followed him. Rachel had been his 'sister' since they were kids. He always told me stories of what they had broken at temple or what kind of trouble they would get in for theiving a local candy shop.

I watched the news everyday, waiting for the smallest of information on his well-being after they were sent overseas. A little over two months it was announced that the Japanese had created a new disease and unleashed it upon American soldiers. I cried myself to sleep that night.

A week later, he returned home looking pale and stiff. I asked him if he had been the group that got hit. He tried lying, but he terrible at it. I took him to the nearest hospital where they said it would be a very slow and painful death. They offered to euthanize and he refused. He was too stubborn to go the easy way out.

What they didn't tell us was that it could take a decade for him to die. I had to hear it from others around the city. I almost killed the doctor for not telling me, but someone beat me to it. He was strangled for the box of cereal and half gallon of milk in his kitchen. I wasn't surprised, but I still cried and threw an angry fist at my bedroom wall for the stupidity of man-kind.

We got news from Kurt, who had been housing Finn when he visited from the war, that Finn was in the same group as Puck. He took the easy way out claiming he couldn't stand being away from Rachel much longer. Puck took the news of FInn's death well. Instead of denying his greif, he admitted it and cried. It was good to see him let it all out. He didn't need to be strong for the both of us as he had said so many times before.

So now I sit here and think of how good of a husband he has been. Not just to me, but to all of us. He fought for Rachel. God bless her soul. He fought for Finn. He fought for me. I heard the phone interrupt me and picked it up. It was the voice I had been waiting to hear from for three days. Shelby. She called every two weeks to let us know how Beth was doing.

"Quinn, I don't know how to say this, but I don't even know how it happened..." She stopped to cry and I knew it wasn't good news. Tears formed and waited for the words that pushed them over the edge. "...I was out getting food because we were so low. I wasn't gone for more than twenty minutes. I came back and she was lying in the middle of the floor. Scavengers got her. There was so much blood."

We both cried over the phone for hours into the night. When we hung up, I got the old shot gun off the wall to protect us from any scavengers. I prayed to God to forgive me that night.

I held the gun to Puck's head as he lay sleeping and breathing heavily. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."  
I fired two shots just to make sure he was dead. I prayed for us to end up next to Beth and Rachel and Finn and anyone else in our high school famiily whose life had been taken.

"Please forgive my sins Father. She was only nine and I cannot go on."

I fired a shot to my chest and died with the burning sensation of the bullet never leaving me in the afterlife.


End file.
